“You’re Just Jealous You Weren’t on Saturday Night Live” and Other High Points of the O’Donnell-Coons Debate

Last night saw the first public debate between Delaware senatorial hopefuls Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons. Throughout the proceedings, Democrat Coons fired several barbs in the direction of O’Donnell, the Republican nominee, choosing to call attention to her newfound national celebrity and her dearth of political experience. O’Donnell’s counter-strategy, according to The New York Times was grounded in her repeated insistence that “she is an ordinary person.” An ordinary person, that is, who no longer believes in witchcraft. “This election should not be about comments I made on a comedy show 10 years ago,” she said. With respect to her disbelief in the theory of evolution, another opinion she aired on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect, she would only say that her opinion on the matter was “irrelevant,” and “local schools should make that decision.” Also on the subject of decisions, O’Donnell was unable to recall a single recent Supreme Court ruling with which she disagreed. Instead, she simply pledged, “I’m sorry, I’ll put it up on my Web site, I promise.” At certain points, the debate pivoted from matters of policy to those of popularity. “Coons said O'Donnell's well-publicized statements from a decade earlier that she dabbled in witchcraft and questioned evolution theory were distractions instead of a substantive campaign issue,” CNN reports. In response to Coons’s criticism, O’Donnell surmised that he was “just jealous” that he too was not parodied on Saturday Night Live. In her unpreparedness and apparent infatuation with her own notoriety, O’Donnell’s debate performance recalls Sarah Palin’s 2008 vice-presidential appearances. Her resemblance to Palin, it now seems, is no longer just physical. Although Palin’s success as an author and demagogue is unquestioned, her viability as a candidate is dubious at best. Depending on whether O’Donnell views public office as a means to an end or as an end in itself—and, discounting the late-90s television appearances, there’s no reason to believe it’s the former—she should take care to learn from Palin’s gaffes, not misidentify them as markers of success.